Cathy's Crazy kitchen | Balance Your Lifestyle

My Seven Day Journey to a balanced Lifestyle

Day One of my Balanced Budget

When your lifestyle changes it’s harder to balance a budget. My new 7-Day Challenge for this week will be difficult but I’m ready to give it a try. For the next seven days I will share my daily goals to manage a balanced budget.

Day One Begins

I woke up to a gentle paw sweeping across my face from my beautiful cat, Mr. Feenie. He was getting tired of waiting for his food and demanded I get up to feed him. He was never on a feeding schedule until recently when we noticed how much his food was killing the grocery budget. As I was dishing out his food I was reminded that today is my seven day challenge to balance a budget. After feeding Mr. Feenie I poured my first cup of coffee and sat down to clear my thoughts and focus on ways to start saving money today.

It’s the end of the month and that means there are bills to pay and groceries to buy. This month was going to be the month to save money. I was already feeling positive about my new goal for the week. Today is my mission to save money so I can end the month with a few dollars left over. The hard part was understanding where I was wasting the most money.

The first thing I decided to do was scroll through my bank account. It was astonishing to me how much I was spending at the corner store. I was gambling a large portion of my budget on scratch tickets and betting on football. It was not a lucky month which meant there was no chance of getting ahead of my budget.

Next thing I noticed was the many times I bought a Tim Hortons icecap and coffee. I was making home made ice caps and drinking instant coffee with cream but some how I still managed to spend a few dollars at Tim’s.

However the biggest expense was the many trips to the grocery store. No matter how hard I try to purchase everything in the beginning of the month, there was always more to buy. I also love baking but butter, flour, sugar and many other ingredients are no longer affordable. That brings me to the next disturbing expense and that would include take-out or fast food. I cut fast food down to once a week but after calculating how much take out cost now a days it’s clear I need to cook at home more.

The first thing I focused on was my monthly menu. After writing down everything I needed for my monthly menu, I checked my fridge to see what I can scratch off the list. For the longest time I would just take out the spoiled food and toss it in the garbage. This time every time something was tossed in the garbage the dreadful sound of money being flushed down the toilet rushed through my body. I decided this month I will try something new and divided my Grocery budget into 4 weeks instead of shopping for the entire month. Today was grocery day and my menu for the week was already to go. This will give me an idea of how much food is getting wasted.

Every Saturday my daughter and I go out and buy our treats for the week. She will buy her chocolate bars and icecaps along with a few scratch tickets and I purchase chips, ice-cream and scratch tickets. Football season is over so at the very least I won’t be buying any sports tickets. The icecaps have always been a major expense and I had it under control for some time. Last summer I made several attempts to find the perfect ice-cap recipe and started making them every day. This saved a lot of money but some how Brittany fell back into the old habit of buying them at Tim Hortons. It was settled! I am not purchasing any scratch tickets and Brittany will be going back to drinking home made ice caps. I already have the mix ready for the days she can’t afford a Timmy’s ice cap.

I hope you enjoyed day one of my journey. I look forward to sharing more of my budgeting ideas through out the week.

As I promised in my last blog called My Lifestyle budget here is a free recipe for home made icecaps. You could probably make ice coffee using the same mix. Let me know if you try an ice coffee, I would love to know if it’s tasty. I personally don’t enjoy cold coffee..